


Love Is

by slutaur



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Sugawara for a moment, background karasuno team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:11:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6455230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slutaur/pseuds/slutaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love isn’t always fun. It isn’t always sickly sweet songs on the radio that tug at the corners of lover’s lips. Nor is it sugar smiles and cherry blush each time one looks at the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Is

Love isn’t always fun. It isn’t always sickly sweet songs on the radio that tug at the corners of lover’s lips. Nor is it sugar smiles and cherry blush each time one looks at the other.

Sometimes love is a parasite, its claws scraping enduring wounds into the soft flesh of the heart as it burrows itself deeply inside. Those festering gashes ache at the sight of their face and the ringing of their laugh—no matter how beautiful. It’s tainted with a toxin that spreads through tired veins and makes the surface skin itch in a way that can never be sated by scratching even to the bone.

Hinata Shouyou clutches a hand subconsciously over his chest, scratching, over that throbbing pain of opening scars and prickling poison being pushed to his every inch with each beat of his heart. He’s always been at odds with his body’s decisions, first with the choice to leave him so much shorter than his tall, athletic peers and now to allow his own heart to betray him like this.

He smiles at Tanaka, his hand leaving the fabric of his shirt to wave the other boy off with a laugh. He pushes Nishinoya’s shoulder and grins radiantly when Sugawara ruffles his hair with affection. But as his eyes shift to Kageyama, the orange haired boy slips into an apprehensive frown, staring at the taller player until the other comes to notice and tosses the ball he had been holding at Hinata’s face. There’s an unspoken expectation for it to be caught, just not by the tip of Shouyou’s nose rather than the tips of his fingers.

Kageyama flinches promptly but briefly, wondering how the pipsqueak could possibly have failed to dodge when he had specifically seen the ball being thrown. But after a moment, words return to him and he fumes, footsteps heavy as he marches over to yell at Hinata, the boy having since crumpled to the floor.

“Idiot! Are you too fucking stupid to duck?” A groan is his response, Hinata’s hands covering his face as the ball bounces innocently to the wayside. Sugawara is rushing over but Kageyama’s attention is stolen by the glimpse of red he spies between Shouyou’s palm and his face when the other shifts just slightly.

The setter crouches and takes him commandingly by the wrist, prying it away from his face without room for protest and is rewarded with a good, clear look at the blood that smears Hinata’s skin. It dribbles down to spill against his shirt once the other sits up dazedly, his blurred thoughts only vaguely acknowledging the pressure of Kageyama’s grip.

“Ff..uck.” The shorter boy looks down at his palm and lower still at his top. Deciding it has been ruined already, he pulls the shirt up by the bottom and uses it to rub his face gently, holding it under his nose to stem the damage. His expression—or what can be seen of it—is a pout thrown Kageyama’s way.

“Hinata, are you okay?” Sugawara fusses from beside him, now well aware of the blood himself, and the injured boy can see Asahi squirming uncomfortably in his peripheral. He has no doubt that the tall ace is probably squeamish. He’s too gentle of a giant for things like blood.

“Yeah… I’m fine.” Shouyou’s words are slow to form and a bit muffled and slurred from the shirt over his face but he nods and accepts Kageyama’s silently offered hand to help him stand. The brunette setter clicks his tongue and looks away from him once he’s on his feet, furious but unable to completely hide his concern.

Coaxing him into tipping his head back, Sugawara helps to gingerly wipe the deep red liquid from Hinata’s skin with his fingers after the flow of blood has more or less stopped, trying to usher the boy into the changing room and away from the rest of the team’s worried expressions by a hand on his lower back. Only Kageyama follows though the other’s eyes trail them as far as they’re able.

Inside, Sugawara gives Hinata’s shirt a tug in a clean spot as he speaks.

“You’ll need to get out of this and find something else to wear for the trip home. You can’t walk back covered in blood.” The third year can hardly imagine what his underclassmen’s mother would think, having her son sent home covered in his own blood. He shakes his head and gives the two of them a light sigh, commenting softly that he’d like them to be more careful.

After a beat has passed in which Kageyama appears to be on the verge of some offended comment or another in which he would claim that he is always careful and that he simply can’t account for unpredictable stupidity, Sugawara looks back inside the gym and turns to Kageyama and Hinata, considering the two. For a moment, he continues gently prodding the redhead’s face with clean sections of his own ruined shirt, touching fingertips under the other’s nose to make sure the bleeding surely has stopped before his hands are chased away by a fussy Hinata for perhaps a bit too much mothering. He chuckles softly.

“I guess this means you’re feeling better… I’m going to finish helping the others clean up if you’re sure you don’t need to be taken to the nurse...” The vice-captain hesitates, waiting to see if either of them will protest, then turns to the taller of the two, “Please make sure he takes care of himself and changes, Kageyama. I’m counting on you.” Sugawara gives a kind, trusting smile before exiting, leaving the two to themselves and making Hinata’s traitorous heart skip a beat at the prospect of being alone together in a changing room with the one person he’s infatuated with.

Crouching and rustling through his bag, Shouyou whines, looking nowhere in particular as he does.

“I forgot my jacket. And I don’t have a change of clothes. What am I supposed to change into?”

Kageyama gives an impatient grunt and glares but reaches into his own duffel bag regardless to grab a fresh shirt. It’s black and declares “Setter Soul” across its front in white characters. Simple and one-track minded, just like the boy himself.

“Don’t get blood on it, dumbass. I want that back.” The comment is thrown casually, along with the shirt. Hinata catches it and laughs, ignoring the stab of guilt and chill of depression intertwining in his chest as he gives a chipper nod.

“Thanks!”

The ruined shirt is grabbed from the hem, yanked off, dampened with a little squeeze of his water bottle, and used to rub his face once more just in case.

“Is it all gone? Or at least unnoticeable?” Shouyou checks with him, opting to close his eyes instead of staring into Tobio’s for any extended period of time. He immediately regrets his decision when he hears Kageyama take a step or two towards him and begins to imagine the other leaning in closer to see, drawing near to his face. And if he just tilts his head slightly to the side and leans forward... His eyes jump open in panic from his train of thought, his heart thumping wildly beneath his ribs, but Tobio is only looking down at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Looks alright enough to get you home. Put the shirt on and hurry the hell up, I want to get home for dinner.”

Not needing any further prompting, the shirt is pulled over Hinata’s head and smoothed down against his chest. It’s too big for him, as anyone could’ve expected, but it looks nice anyhow—baggy and comfortable.

All of the rest of his belongings are shoved back into his bag, piling on top of the jacket he had hidden down at the bottom, to be zipped up and tossed over his shoulder. Though the redhead still waits a moment for Kageyama to finish gathering his own things in order for the two to head out together. Kageyama promises Daichi that he will walk Hinata halfway home and the two bid the others goodbye, wandering away and out of sight of the school upon a familiar path. The shorter boy smirks, rubbing the fabric of the shirt against his cheek with his shoulder as he pushes his bicycle along.

“You’re never getting this back, you know. It’s way too comfortable. Who knew you could pick a shirt.” Kageyama growls and smacks him on the opposite shoulder as they walk.

“I’m lending it to you. You aren’t keeping it. It’s swallowing you whole anyway, why the fuck would you want to steal it?”

“Just to piss you off.” Hinata runs ahead laughing, chased after by the brunette a bit farther than halfway to his house.

That night in his room, Shouyou rolls to his side. He’s dressed in his sleepwear, the house already tucked in for bed and having said their goodnights. The boy curls in on himself, the shirt clutched to his chest with one hand and held to his nose with the other.

He sobs into it, smelling it deeply upon inhale between cries just as silent as he can keep them. The smell is intoxicating and lethal, poisoning him with each unsteady breath inward. But he can’t stop breathing any more than he can stop loving Kageyama.

He had lied to borrow that shirt, knowing fully well that he shouldn’t, that he should leave well enough alone. He’d hoped that Kageyama wouldn’t see the jacket lying at the bottom of his bag and that he would get away with it—and he had. For what? To weep into it and pray that the setter couldn’t feel the sadness thoroughly drenching it when he gives it back?

Shouyou knows he isn’t going to give it back.

The boy trembles with the effort to keep himself quiet, muted cries shouted into the fabric of Kageyama’s shirt as if the threads could absorb the noise. He can’t pretend and imagine that Kageyama’s arms are around him. He refuses to allow his mind to play tricks on him and hallucinate being held to that substantial chest, able to smell his scent directly instead of from a limp and empty shirt.

Because reality will always come crashing down like bricks from above, smacking wetly against his skull as it cracks open and his misery leaks from the only exit it has found.

Love, to a lonely boy eaten away by his secrets, is a numbness in Shouyou’s face from crying too hard. And a sore throat from the refusal to make a sound as he screams.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been several years since I last wrote a piece of fanfiction or drew fanart and I certainly feel as rusty as can be expected, hahah. Roleplaying has kept me on my toes but the two are truly different beasts. I think I saw a writing prompt that just read “love hurts” and I scribbled this in response to try and get back into things. 
> 
> The opening drawing is my own and something I drew to be paired with this short, rambling story. It’s more of a reflection of Shouyou’s feelings than it is an image from any one scene. A larger version of the drawing can be found on my tumblr [here](http://slutaur.tumblr.com/post/142220740769/trying-to-get-back-into-art-and-writing-i-drew).
> 
> I hope that this can be enjoyed in some fashion for what it is and my thanks to those that spend the time to read it! Constructive criticism is always welcome, as are all other comments and conversations~


End file.
